Category: Pensive

I need a notebook right now. Like now. Before I forget what’s on my mind, I gotta jot it down. I will get back to it later, when I am more inspired and fill it in. I will then give it a closure and wrap it up. Ok, now where is the notebook? Isn’t there one empty notebook in this house? Empty pages are all of what I see when I walk around looking for practically anything in this house. Just like Murphy’s, I would not find that ‘always seen’ notebook when I am looking for it. There it is!

This book has seen a lot. Are you confused? Please don’t be. I know why it sounds funny that I call an empty notebook to have seen a lot. I will tell you why, in just a little bit.

The first time I picked this notebook, I got it in a desperate mood. I felt like there was an indispensable place and need for this book because I was stepping into the next learning curve at work. So I had this rush to take notes. A lot of notes. That’s how this notebook became mine to keep. I needed it so badly back then, that it has been lying unused for over three months now, obviously because I had gotten it for an immediate purpose. Genius move.

By the way, this is not the first page of this notebook. But I did note few points that were part of my ‘learning curve’ lessons. I guess I worked too flat for the curve to happen. It will eventually happen. Somehow I didn’t persist. Rather I didn’t need this notebook, maybe?! The reason I think so is because, those notes were never looked into after. But the notebook was really needed you know?! That’s because I joined a class soon after.

Is there any classroom learning that can go on without notes? So yes, this class also called for a systematic note-taking as a proof of my sincerity and attention (deficit). This human’s heart was inflated by the contentment of this human’s mind and its resourceful abilities. How smart is my brain to have quickly figure out that this learning curve did not demand any amount of note-taking! So the TPU (top processing unit) decided to assign these empty pages of memory to a new algorithm (class of learning) that began joyfully. Ok, turning off my engineer brain until further need. Saves up a lot of energy, you know!

Back to the new class. First session was over. After my first class, I excitedly flutter the empty pages of just not too new notebook, and my teacher’s painted eyes stared from between the spectacles that skied down his nose, and the furry brows. For a moment, the 90s Onida TV ad demon brows put me on a freeze mode. The teacher wanted me to do some ‘memory job’ and not scribble away every word. “BHOOK!!!!!!!!!” sighed the notebook as I closed it. Sigh!

Now what’s with this notebook and giving up? Everytime I tried to use it . . . Ok, both the times I tried, I hardly wrote 20 letters. But today is going to be different.

I want to start a journal. A health journal. One on my fitness and all of the communication that I have with my body. I believe that human body is the most complicated scientific system in this world. Smart, efficient, adaptable, unique, and most of all, self-healing! How much of it do we respect and reciprocate? None of man-made systems have surpassed, replicated, mimicked or even come close to this wonder. It keeps communicating so well, and so often in a day. I don’t mean to be pessimistic about mankind’s capabilities or achievements. But I like to be practical about the fact that we are getting towards isolating the organs and mimicking their functioning when it is a system and that is what inspires us more.

So, I have decided to log about this incessant and eternal verbal and non-verbal communication that I have with my body. So this notebook is going to be a personal health journal. Not silent and empty anymore. And I hope it makes sense now, as to why I claimed this notebook to have seen a lot before. Before a notebook sees the words of a writer, the empty pages go in hiding, waiting to be touched and taught. And all this while, it watches out for the writer’s unstoppable thoughts. There is a lot of noise that dissolves in between the cover of a notebook and its spine. Until a writer walks past the writer’s block, the empty pages see through a lot of cacophony in the writer’s head. It is like the uterus of a carrying mother.

Well, this is the first time I have crossed the 20 letter mark on the pages of this notebook. More hope. More thoughts. More words . . . More . . . Less is more . . .

What would have Rose gone through after Jack died drowning? What kept her alive all the years amidst such a tragic love during the formative years of her life? But what if Jack tried to protect her by deception? What would have happened if Jack knew his impending death and gathered all of his balls to lie about the vacuum of hate for her? A thought experiment.

She sat by the dusky stone bench and thought of that night when he had drowned after speaking out all of his heart. All of his hate. All of what he had meticulously coated on just to make her believe the unbelievable. But she was smart, he thought. Was she? The water in her eyes drowned him down more than the drunk ocean.

Will it be today? At least? How much longer should I endure this before I know this is the last? Why can’t I want this to be my last breath? Why don’t people see that depression is real? Depression is the unwanted meal you stare at, on a long day. Depression is the uncalled sleep that pulls you away. Depression is real. Tonight is the night. Or is today the day? The D-day? Depressing day. Everyday. It is all coming down on me. I know my PMSes kill me. I know he kills me too. But it cant take away what he means to me. It cant alter what I have for him even if it does not happen. It is intense. It is pure. It is pristine like a drop of rain. When I look at the blue ocean bed, I am reminded of him. The transparency, the openness, that clarity, I think that is him in my mind. What I have for him, is as pure as the first DNA copy of an unborn child. It cannot be touched, moved, altered or influenced physically. But it can be destroyed by internal fire. It can create a whole new beautiful being. It is the pearl of life – the tiniest Might. The unborn knight. The unspoken truth. The untouched drop of rain. The unbroken promise. And the unparalleled lullaby. The first light of life begins in the dark. The first cloud of darkness brings light.

Everyday means a new beginning to this deceitful world. But I am smart. Because I know the truth. I know that everyday is not a beginning. It is the gateway to the end. It is the last opportunity for my breath. It is the last of all that I want it to be. Why should I really pursue this darkness? Why should it really be pursued if the dark clouds love me so much? I loved it back too. But the clouds dint seem to be moved by my true love. They seemed to enjoy it instead. That is not why I loved them. I loved them so they wouldn’t stay. I loved them so they wouldn’t torment me with more downpour! They chose me instead. This cats and dogs of downpour is just too much to take. I know this is the last sight of this view that I can get. All of me is already drenched and decayed in the pool of tormented downpour that is flooding me from those lovely dark clouds. Oh so not lovely you cloudy! Now I am telling you I hate you. Just go away! Just don’t shower me anymore of those pristine drops! You don’t seem dark just on the outside. You seem to organically cook your darkness to make some dingy heavy and blotted drops. And I don’t love them cloudy. Oh so please keep your blots away from me. Why do you keep my sight yet after all this downpour? Are you enjoying my stares at you? Can’t you see I want to not see you? Like he wants me out? Either swallow me or get away from me? What do you enjoy from holding me up in your throat all alive? Don’t you want to let go of me? Do you? Will you?
So what if life beats me down? Why can’t you shine up and show me the way like a melting pot of golden sunset? Yes light is not always just sunrise. Sunset is light too, for it paves the way to endurance. If you want to hold me up for longer, let me tell you, I want to end it all.

As the water near her feet receded, she looked up at the clouds once again pleadingly. And she wept. And she was drowned up to her nose yet again. And the thunder roared ‘NOT TODAY. Just ONE MORE DAY’. Everyday.

This post is a submission to ‘The Chennai Blogger’s Club’s photo prompt.

Stress could be diverse. Stress has several causes. But one of the reasons for stress is universal. And what could that reason be? It is simply not enjoying what you do, on a regular basis. If this reason is universal, why is work considered stressful? Because you may want to argue that there are a lot of variables involved with the choice of profession, starting from family background, nature of job, work shifts, financial security, and personal setbacks in life. But before you come up with your excuses (yes, that’s what I would like to address them as, for now), think again. Innately, it just means that you do not give yourself a good company at work, and while you work. Now, what does that mean?

A country can only have one leader at a time. The lack of attention to detail from thousands of dreamers, hundreds of aspirants, and a handful of candidates to one facet of their dream, is the trump (duh!) card that the winning candidate flipped to his/her favor. During the tenure of that leader, every other potential leader, lives through with hard-hitting lessons and strategies that their dream recently taught them. As long as the lessons remain reinforcing, their dream is alive. The moment they allow pressure to seep in, their dream boat starts to sink. They go back to work, and give a little bit lesser of themselves to work, than the previous day. In the race between mounting pressure and reinforced lessons, mind falters in a jiffy and you tend to give in to pressure. You love your dream. But your love for that work towards your dream is a little less than yesterday. A lot of these littles, make it big. Every drop counts. Because it drops. To those who think that you are positively passionate and will never love it any less, way to go. That’s the intent. But wanting to get there, and getting there, are two very different challenges.

So what’s the point? Love yourself a little more with each passing day, because when a bad day happens, it does not guarantee to take just a little away from you everyday. What gets taken away, always seems bigger than what you gathered to avoid the mishap. Give yourself a good company at whatever you do. Add some spice, and liven it up. It’s inexplicable to understand, and measure the rewards of enthusiasm. You never know how rewarding your enthusiasm could be. So the best approach is to give a little more than before. This way, what you lose remains insignificant in comparison to your unfathomable endurance, grit and passion. The more you possess, the less you could give. Yes, it is a strange math.

Your first best should be your-self! Most needed friend . . .
Pingback – A Friend in Need

It’s tough. To draw the line.
To walk ahead. Without a stick to cut the depth!
What if I fall into something deep? What if I assume it to be shallow and lose sight of light?
Allow me some space. To anticipate the terrain.
And then you will watch me walk and explore!

The absence of light alone does not make it dark. Ceding on your trail does.
Denial of hope. That is darkness.
Bruises. That’s not dark. Excuses. Fears. Doubts. And a delirium of disbelief – That’s too dark!
Lack of faith in yourself? – yeah, a bit dark.
But what’s pitch dark, is to close your eyes away from your own light!

Allow me some space for me to discover my light.
Allow me my space.
It’s not a blame game. Pointing fingers don’t do any good, ever.
Rather, holding them does. Hold them to tread the path.
It rewards us with a beautiful landscape and breathtaking views, of ourselves!

Photography is turning out to be digital art off late. For a long time, I did not understand art. Friends and elders visited museums, and stood frozen in front of a painting, while I stood confused. It did not make sense to me. I used to wonder if they were bluffing for the status quo. Turned out that they dint, lest I remained ignorant. But I kept tagging along in the hope that I would decipher the spell some day. As an homage to Earth Day celebrated on April 22nd every year, this article is going to capture Earth and its beauty as seen from outside the planet.

Why is art viewing considered to be an intelligent hobby?

To understand the intelligence behind art viewing, we need to understand what part of the viewer’s thought process, ends up demonstrating that intelligence? Here is my reasoning . . .

Is it the forethought? –

As an example, I have felt numb looking at some modern art paintings before. Until I figured that they showed the present day planet, several hundreds of years ago or later! That’s when I thought that conceiving an art piece is genius, and viewing it requires a degree of ‘intelligence’ in combination with perception & outlook. Unlike intelligence which is common to animals as well, the latter two, keep evolving with our experiences in life. And this is passive evolution. We do not necessarily try to change our perception, it just happens involuntarily although it could involve some strong influence.

Astronaut Scott Kelly’s images are a good example of what I am explaining in forethought. Scott spent a year in space (in ISS), and took pictures of Earth at various times, across the planet. While people fill their Instagram profiles with their life and their art, Scott got a little excited and filled it all with #EarthArt as he likes to hashtag them. Waters, deserts, Himalayas, volcanoes, aurora borealis (aka) the northern lights and all the magnificence of this planet lined up themselves lifting their heads and looking up, waiting to be captured by Scott’s lenses.

Look at this image from Scott’s gallery. It is the Bahamas.

If I saw this in a museum before learning about Scott, I would have walked past without a thought. Okay. Some one just took shades of blue and white and drew some kiddish scribblings. Is this art? Hello? But now, I know. I know why this is art. If it is about the planet, why is it not science? It is not. Think about it. It is an abstract expression of a mind. We observe things all through the day in our lives, and when we close our eyes, not everyone’s mind pictures so much beauty. To those for whom it does, it is indeed a gift. And that, is art. A vivid imagination of distant reality. And the planet view is just an example. To an artist’s mind, imagination is infinite. They can picture and paint the minutest and the mightiest of things. They may be able to draw their mind, who knows? I can’t begin to imagine or explain the vastness of their potential.

Is art viewing therapeutic? – I am yet to experience this feeling. But I have heard a lot of people feel a sense of calm and tranquility, doing or viewing an art piece.

Is it mysterious? – When you do not understand something fully, yet it sits in your brain like an iron on a magnet, refusing to explain the phenomenon, and not moving away as well, you just get consumed by it. You find it fascinating, and you wait to decipher it. And this anxiety with magic, could potentially drive you to acquire the intelligence to understand it. In this case, motivation is derived from the mystery of art’s beauty.

Note – To view more of Scott’s work, here is the link to his Instagram.

I am not here to praise the director and the crew for their fine detailing – from the unimaginable lush green and blue planet graphics, to the minuscule ‘Zoogle’ photos on the phones. Enough has been said, and proved by the Pixar guys. I am going to take the philosophical aspect of this movie because it is more than just an entertainer.

Have you watched it yet? If you have, then you already know what I am blogging about. I guess my question should have been “Have you been there yet? To Zootopia?” because I have been there and I’m just back. I do not wish to go back again, but I do wish I could live there forever! So you want to know what it is like? I’d rather say it is what all of us wished our place to be like. Because Zootopia is the much-needed city of a happy world, in this planet.

“Zootopia is a unique place. It is a crazy, diverse and beautiful city where we celebrate our differences. “

If this dialogue does not ring in your mind, about all of the diversity and the differences that the world is occasionally failing to recognize (don’t even celebrate), then you are probably not living in this decade. A lot of beautiful things are happening everywhere, no doubt about that! But at the same rate, there is declining acceptance and kindness like the top fertile soil getting eroded by pristine rain water flooding in ignorance.

And Zootopia comes to us as a rescue mission, reminding us of humane compassion, and the due kindness that is buried deep under the thick skin and the timid bones. When a lead character decides to explore, gone are the times when people advise; It is more vile now. She is infused with scary thoughts – she is asked to reconsider her decisions because,

“If you don’t try anything new, you will never fail. That’s the beauty of complacency!”

That’s right! The fear of failure could creep in and stop you from trying in the first place. It is as spirit-less as this fact. You will stagnate. You will be left behind, if you don’t catch up and explore! That’s the part that is not mentioned.

“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself!”

Do not step back from an attempt just because you are a man or a woman or because you come from a specific country or because you wear a specific skin tone or because you follow a god of your choice or because of your DNA or because some one tried to plant this difference, as a defect in you. Because none of it matters. Who you are, or where you come from should not stop you from doing what you want to do, as long as it is constructive! This is when the rabbit reminds us,

“I came here to make the world a better place but I think I broke it. Real life is messy”

so don’t let it eat you up, alive! And in the process, make sure you don’t lose your mind to evil vibes because change starts from within, and it has a long way to go until it can be seen around. So until then, don’t waver. Don’t give in to negativity. Keep your mental immunity high and soaring. There is an advantage to positivity. It is more contagious than its counterpart. All you gotta do is hold onto it, and it will easily find its way to propagate and penetrate outside of you. So keep your attitude contagious and worth catching. Don’t break anything. Don’t break anyone. It takes a great deal of conviction and blood to create something. Until you create something you love, you would never understand the pain of watching it burn down.

What does the rabbit try to communicate when she is forced to believe that foxes are innately cunning, and lions are all innately wild? That, it doesn’t matter. With education, anybody can be enlightened. Ignorance is not always bliss. Demons and darlings are a part of you. You have the key to choose what you wish to unleash, and at what point.

“We all have limitations. We all make mistakes. And the more we try to understand one another, more beautiful our lives will be.”

So, think before you call someone a scared chicken or a filthy animal. There is so much to each, than what meets the eye! With all of that said, do you still think it is a movie for the kids?